…any claim about sodium, preventing disease or lowering blood pressure made the product more appealing.

When asked about a variety of health issues, including losing weight, constipation, and diabetes, participants in the survey said that lower-sodium products would prevent all of them.
Alas, reducing sodium helps only to reduce blood pressure.

“What we saw there was a halo effect [with the low-sodium claim],” says Christina Wong, a graduate student and lead author of the study, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
“They see a whole range of health benefits that are totally unrelated to the nutrient.”